


before i fly away

by marveling_under_an_open_sky



Category: Ancient Greek Religion & Lore, Hadestown - Mitchell
Genre: Catharsis, F/M, Gen, hestia missing from the hadestown verse??, not if I can help it, platonic love everywhere
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-15
Updated: 2019-08-15
Packaged: 2020-09-01 14:17:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20259460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marveling_under_an_open_sky/pseuds/marveling_under_an_open_sky
Summary: It's spring, yes, but do not forget the boy who can dream no longer and the girl who hungers still.•••••Hestia receives a visitor.





	before i fly away

**Author's Note:**

> A nod to maplemood for our lovely chats about Hadestown and Hestia!

No one climbs the front steps like Persephone does, and no one carries a scent like hers - engine smoke and ash, overlaid with jasmine and pine and rain and a hundred other heady nature odors you’d like to bottle or drink or possibly spray your bathroom with. 

Hestia opens that old cedar door before Persephone can, because Persephone hasn’t bothered to knock for the past millennium. The goddess of summertime shakes the damp from her coat and without one word sweeps into the warmth of Hestia’s cottage.

She hasn’t yet shed the imperial arch of her back that Hadestown brings to her spine. Hestia closes the door and takes in Persephone’s profile, the set of her jaw, the slope of her eyes, the angle of that gust of golden-brown curls. 

“Baby,” Hestia tells her, “you’re too young to look like this.” 

Persephone only stares at Hestia with a gaze bleak as winter. You would not be able to recognize it is spring.

“Auntie, I ain’t been young in a long time.” 

Green velvet whirls as Persephone pitches herself into an armchair near the fire. “Anything to drink?”

Hestia knows Persephone is craving oblivion, but Hestia has none to offer her. Blotting out the pain only saves it for later. She lifts a kettle from the stove, pours a generous amount into one of the terracotta mugs she crafted herself. 

Persephone accepts the mug eagerly and gulps it without so much as glancing at its contents, and Hestia aches at the sight of her desperation. The drink hits the back of Persephone’s throat and she almost gags. 

The girl was not expecting hot cocoa, clearly. 

Persephone splutters, “_Auntie!_” 

“Yes, Seph?” Hestia replies mildly.

Persephone starts to say something, but it quickly dissolves to coughing, and in the end she settles for glowering at Hestia, her silence punctuated by jerking coughs. Hestia allows her smile to creep over her lips as she fixes her own mug, and eventually Persephone breaks out laughing. Persephone has a thousand laughs and a thousand shades of nuance, but this one is frank humor, self-deprecation, bitterness over her broad past of far less innocent drinks. 

Hestia sips her own cocoa as she makes her way to join Persephone at the fire. She would give much to hear Persephone’s laugh unburdened, but her sister can be wise: _ You take what you can get, and you make the most of it. _

Hestia perches in her own armchair, her fingertips finding the little worn spot in the arm’s fabric. Bluntness will not serve her here; the matter scraping at Persephone’s heart will come out, or it won’t, but Hestia can wait forever. 

So, instead, she asks about Demeter. (Persephone snorts, flicks her fingers in a dismissive yet half-regretful movement.) Hestia observes that the cottonwood trees are releasing their fluff in aggravating amounts, and describes the recent antics of Hedone, Psyche’s bright-eyed daughter. And all the while, she stretches out cautious fingers, willing shoulders, ready to take on whatever Persephone’s burden may be. 

Conversation lulls. Persephone’s eyes are fixed on the fire. She no longer seems to find the hot cocoa objectionable. She looks young, then, knees tipped together and hands atop them, and so weary. Her youth has reemerged: _ I didn’t know I could be hurt like this. _ Hestia knows Persephone is on close terms with pain. But there is something this year, some new wound, and Persephone is startled at the freshness of it and disbelieving that she could be startled. Hestia tucks her own legs up in her chair, watching her niece. “Seph?”

Persephone flashes her one swift look and just like that, it spills over from her chapped lips. Eurydice and Orpheus. How Eurydice sought the Underworld. How she found out, too late, what she sacrificed. And how her Orpheus followed her, and the deal Hades struck with him. 

How Orpheus turned back, and how he condemned them both. 

Hestia closes her eyes at some point during the tale. “Those_ children_,” she says softly, eyes flickering open again, when the flood slows to a trickle, and then to a halt. 

“We were all children once,” Persephone growls, and drops her head into her hands. 

Hestia rises from her chair and wraps Persephone up in her embrace, wishing these arms could protect the girl from any more harm. 

Persephone’s voice is ragged. “They _ tried_, Auntie.”

Hestia holds her tighter. “I know, baby. I know they did.”

The girl - no more than a girl, no longer a goddess - buries her face in Hestia’s blouse, as if she only hugged her hard enough, her auntie’s arms could shield her from the world.

Then Persephone draws back, and they do not speak of it for the rest of the night. 

It is not just Hades who can build walls. Persephone’s are as formidable as you would expect the Lady of the Underground’s to be. Hestia studies her carefully, but only when Persephone is about to leave do the walls slip. 

She pauses on the porch, almost out of reach of the cottage’s glow. 

“Next time I come, teach me to make hot cocoa.”

Hestia tilts forward, hands braced on the doorframe. “Seph, I’ve been waiting an eon for you to ask.”

Persephone smiles and shuts the door behind her, a gentle _ click_.

•••••

It’s a hot night when Persephone comes again, a dense fever of heat, thick in the throat. The heat clings to Hestia’s body, suffocating to some, but to her it is merely a second skin, no more troublesome than gooseflesh. It does not surprise her that Persephone would choose to visit on this night.

However, her niece does not arrive alone.

His build surpasses slight, missed meals carved into his body. Light brown hair falls over his pale face. Once it must have been fashionably tousled; now, it looks like it belongs to a person who no longer has enough in him to care for such things. 

But those eyes. He’s a boy in form, but a man in what those hazel eyes have seen. They’re hollow as empty pots on a burnt-out stove.

There is no doubt of who this desolate stranger is.

“Orpheus,” Hestia whispers. She steps forward and places her hands on his shoulders. He flinches under her touch. She looks into his face, finding the sorrow-lines no one his age should have. “Orpheus, you can only grow from this if you let your shame go. Guilt, yes, but do not cling onto shame. You were brave, my skylark, and you can continue to be brave.”

Hestia doesn’t know if she reaches for him or if he falls into her, but all at once she’s cradling him against her chest, and he’s weeping as if he has only this one day to weep. She presses her temple against the crown of his head. “You are brave,” she whispers. It’s a long while before his frame ceases to shudder from the force of his sobs, but even then, he doesn’t move away. 

Hestia opens her eyes to see Persephone. She’s leaning up against the porch rail, palms pressed deep into the wood. There are tears on her cheeks. Her lips shape the words, _ thank you_. 

_ Thank you. _

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos would be much appreciated, and constructive criticism is very welcome!
> 
> This fic has been under construction since May. It's one I've wanted to get as close to _ just right_ as possible. Cauldronfuls of gratitude to J.S. and N.R. and to all the Hestias out there, making safe places for us to let out our pain.


End file.
